I will show you how I used one of the free online freelancing sites to generate enough money to cover some of my bills - and still have more to put into my savings bank account.

Now just to let you know that I am not a full-time freelancer, and I don't make anywhere close to Nkem Jana. My main area is software engineering, meaning that I work with companies to help them ensure that their product is developed and delivered on time and within budget. Come to think of it, the whole internet eco-system is developed and run on software applications. So, why is it that many of us software professionals have not really taken advantage of our expertise and start making good decent income online?

To answer this question myself, I thought I would looked around for how software developers make money online. It turns out that most people think that it is affiliate marketers who are the only people that can truly make money online. That is wrong. In fact, there has been a long history of freelancers who have been in the business long enough that they now rake in more money than those who claim to be employed full-time.

To try this out, I signed up with one of the best known freelance websites out there today - Odesk.com; and within weeks was able to start making some cool money on the side.

I work full-time like the rest of you guys, so I didn't have to change anything. Instead what I changed was my bank balance. I now have more money coming in on weekends and evenings that I don't have to worry about things like credit card loan bills, cheap loans and stuff like that. The money I now make simply by taking on some of the millions of projects on the site is enough to cover most of my outgoings.

$750 earned within days

The cool thing about this is that you don't need to have a degree in computer science to start working on any of the projects. There are all sorts of work there from simple data input job, to Accounting, iPhone development, Java, Python....or you if you can't write software, you could think about article writing which could give you anything between $20 -$75/ 500 words.

Have a look - there's something for everyone, so if I can just write a simple 300 article for $50 for someone, you too can do far much more than that. I didn't want to post the screenshot, but thought I should put it up here for those who love to see evidence to give them extra motivation. For the record, I did a simple plug in development for a client and one article. The majority of the income came from that single plug in which took me 3 nights to develop as I work during the day. The article took me roughly a few days to complete - I needed to research it, meaning there was no need to rush. Most clients are happy to give you as much time as you need as long as you are in constant contact.

The gist here is that no matter what sort of background you have, there's millions of opportunities out there, it's a question of how motivated are you about doing something extra in the evenings and weekends to earn some extra cash.